Thursday, May 10, 2012

Gah. (Gall?)

So. Looks like May will be another eventful month for us. After a couple weeks of increasingly severe pain after eating (including one doctor's appointment that he canceled the day of because OF COURSE he started feeling better that day, only to feel much worse again two days later), Torsten ended up in the ER on Monday night with agonizing abdominal pain after a small meal (scrambled eggs, if you're curious). Five hours later and he left with a diagnosis of gallstones, a prescription for pain meds, and a mandate to meet with a surgeon the next day.

We met with the surgeon on Tuesday and he confirmed the diagnosis and said the gallbladder has to come out. Surgery is scheduled for this afternoon. It is a very routine procedure that will be done laparoscopically and should take less than an hour, but it involves general anesthesia and Torsten is being his typical anxious self. He's already informed me that if he dies, I should use part of his life insurance to buy a Porsche (his dream car). I informed him that it didn't seem too practical to spend a large chunk of his life insurance on a car I neither need or want when I'm facing the prospect of single motherhood on a single income. For some reason he wasn't impressed with that response.

Anyway, the surgery is routine and it will all be fine, and from what we hear he will feel a whole lot better as soon as the gallbladder is out (though he actually feels fine currently, as long as he doesn't consume a gram of fat, so he's subsisting on bread, fruit, and nonfat yogurt at the moment). Even he knows that this is really not that big a deal. But still, good thoughts would be appreciated!

14 comments:

I had the surgery years ago and everything was fine - I did feel better immediately. Recovery was a bit painful for a few days, but pain meds helped and after those first few days, I recovered quickly and have been fine ever since.

I hope everything goes well! My friend had that surgery a few years ago and it went very smoothly. (I realize that doesn't mean anything for other people's surgeries. But I am the anxious sort myself, and I feel very soothed by anecdotes about other people going through things ahead of me.)

I'll be thinking of you two! Bryan had his out 3 years ago, and it was immediately better. He had 3-4 days of pain post surgery (mostly due to the air they pump into the abdomen), but by week two we were off to Hawaii and snorkeling :) I read all kinds of horror stories about people never being able to eat normally after, so I want to tell you that that is definitely NOT the norm! Bryan eats anything and everything now.

my friend Marie just had hers out in the fall, and it went very well for her as well. she was on that same awful limited diet in the weeks leading up to it, and has been super-a-ok ever since, can eat anything/everything. her recovery was also nice & routine! sending positive thoughts for the same experience for torsten :)

Sending positive vibes your way! I had gallstones right after giving birth to my son and thought I would DIE! (Is that too dramatic?) I had our son in October and my gallbladder out in January. It was one of the best decisions of my life. (Again with the dramatics...) I had it out on a Thursday and went back to work on Monday, but I was SO HAPPY to be rid of it, I really feel like I could have skipped to work that Friday! :)